Customer relationship management

If your business sells, markets or provides services to customers, it is likely that you need a customer relationship management (CRM) system.

Reasons you may need a CRM system

Consider replacing spreadsheets and handwritten notes with a more efficient CRM system if any of the following is true:

• Your customer information is scattered in more than one location. You're keeping spreadsheets, notes and casual records, and there is no central repository for all this data. You have no single view of your customers' contact information, orders, queries and general interactions.
• You're losing track of data. You're searching through miscellaneous documents, multiple hard drives and random folders, and none of the information is secure or organised. You realise you're missing valuable data on your customers.
• You have no remote access to your data. You're restricted to viewing it from a certain office or machine, which is causing problems when you're travelling or away from your desk, meeting customers and sourcing new prospects.
• You have no visibility of what your sales team are doing in or out of the office. You can't tell what customers they are approaching and how they are performing. You have no way of keeping your sales staff accountable and ensuring that they meet their goals.
• You struggle to create meaningful and actionable sales or customer service reports. You miss cross-sale and up-sale opportunities, and chances to target prospects. You struggle to identify the best leads and convert them into opportunities.
• Your processes are rigid and unable to scale. Your productivity falls as your workloads increase, and you find yourself wasting time on tedious or repetitive tasks that could otherwise be automated.

A CRM system gives you visibility into your sales and marketing activities and allows you to deliver a better overall customer experience. If you're still not sure if you need it, check out these business benefits of CRM systems.